Step 1: Building Yourself Some Fins

The fins themselves are pretty simple, the difficult part is positioning them evenly around the rocket. To make a fin, first you'll need to fold a playing card in half hamburger style. Take your superglue and seal the folded halves together, like a sandwich. Glue is going to ooze out the sides and get all over your fingers, but just suck it up and take it like a man. Make two of these sandwiches and let the glue completely dry.

Now you can need to do a little bit of measuring, but nothing too complicated. Take one of the folded cards and put it perpendicular to the other, forming an L. Mark off the edge and cut it away so you're left with one square-ish shape. Repeat with the other folded card and, if you've done everything correctly thus far you should be left with two pseudo-squares.

Take these faux-squares and cut diagonally across from the curved corner to the corner directly opposite. You should now have four fin shapes, congratulations. Now onto the difficult part, attaching them.

Great instructable. I've thought about doing this in the past and just haven't taken the time. Clever idea for the nose cone. If you backed each fin up a little then they could help support each other(see diagram). The only problem with a rocket like this is if it maintains a parabolic trajectory towards the ground rather then just tumble because if this happens then it will continue to gain momentum as if falls and can do considerable damage. Hopefully when the ejection charge blows it will blow the nose cone off causing it to tumble rather then follow a parabolic trajectory.

Hello (zach), I loved the instructable, and it reminded me of rocket I made last summer. By made I mean that I found as many engines as I could, chad staged them, and stuck fins on 'em. Attached is a picture. It flew. Mostly.

HAHAI saw somebody launch a multi-stage one of these! Just loosely tape a booster engine (something like a B6-0) to a regular engine (say, a B6-5), put a cone-shaped thing on top, and tape the fins to the upper engine, but so that they extend down past the lower one a bit. WHen he launched it, it went up for a ways, we saw the second stage ignite, and then… it just disappeared into the sky.

u get a three good, but I extremely dislike the thought that i could kill my self... but I'd be happy what a hell of a way to die in your own amazing explosion dreaming of bigger ones.... im not emo I just like explosions and you may need to put a little more thought into the disclaimer, cuz it will probably not help you any... good one!

No, it wouldn't explode, the rocket will probably just fall over, crack your rib if it hits you, and probably make you go to da hospital. If it hits your nuts then you can be just like Justin Bieber, with his girly voice. Stoopid can drive says if we get the most cans in the Tri-State region he comes to give our school concert.

the only way i could see this killing u is if u lit it and then stuck it up ur...um... anyway, its that or shoving it down ur throat and then igniting it. (tho there wouldnt be enough oxygen for it to stay lit)

Compressed air wouldn't work in space because... There's no air in space! The gas that was rushing out wouldn't work cause there's nothing for it to push against. They use rocket engines in space. Basically they have fuel and an oxidizer. The oxidizer provides the oxygen and the burning oxidizer and fuel provides the thrust.

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Compressed air works exactly the same way that rockets in space work. You don't have to "push against something". All you have to do is throw something off of the back really fast and for every action, you get a reaction.

In the case of rockets, the rocket is "pushing against" the gas that is being expelled. Or, perhaps more correctly, the gas is "pushing against" the rocket.

There are two equal forces - one force is pushing the rocket one way, and the other force is pushing the gas the other way.

Imagine a mouse trap in space that is loaded with a marble - so that when the mouse trap triggers the marble goes flying. What will happen is that the marble goes one way and the mouse trap goes the opposite direction. There doesn't need to be a third thing (air) to 'push against'.

Since the marble has less mass than the mouse trap, and since the forces are equal, it means that the acceleration/velocity will be different for the two items - remember that F = mA (Force = mass * acceleration) and K = mV (Kinetic energy = mass * velocity). If the marble is half the mass, it will be moving twice as fast.

This is exactly what happens when you expel compressed gas or use a rocket - the tiny particles of gas have very small mass, but they are moving incredibly fast. This gives an appreciable amount of acceleration to the rocket. This is why you always have to take into account that a rocket loses mass as it accelerates.

Way too complicated all you need is a 5 cent birthday cake sparkler. Set the rocket down on it so the tip is in the engine, light the bottom of the stuff with a BBQ lighter, stand back. Lit off a lot of rockets this way and never had a problem.

Is there another way of launching these?I mean, without the detonator? I got one from a friend when I was visiting the US but I lost the detonator somehow and brought only the engine!I was planning on attaching it to a RC airplane!

I like the way you constructed a nose cone from aluminum foil, but it should be bigger so that the base of the nose cone is equal to the diameter of the motor. I'm going to make one using corrugated cardboard fins in a more conventional configuration and I will probably use tiny pieces of fabric to reinforce the joints where the fins attach to the motor. I won't spend too much time on it though, since it is only going to be used to light a brush fire with my shoulder-mounted launcher! Who says yard work has to be boring??? LOL

Try using fins that reach below the rocket motor bottom. This should provide greater stability through increased leverage. Be sure to angle the fins away from the nozzle. Longer fins=greater stability. A longer (and symmetrical) nose cone will help in the same way - be careful out there!

Awesome! WARNING: If you try the following variation, don't blame me if you loose a hand, an eye or your jaw. When I was a kid I knew someone who would glue a cherry bomb to the top as a nose-cone. Turn it fuse down and insert the fuse into the hole in the top of the engine. You may have to trim the fuse a little shorter. (Is this possible without igniting the fuse?) As long as you have long wires attached to you launch remote you shouldn't blow yourself up on launch.

cool - the best part is once the rocket reaches altitude, the metal tip will blow off because of the parachute ejection charge in the engine (unless you have one without it, more boring) if you make the tip pointy, be careful! but you could also make the tip filled with some liquid so its like dropping a little bomb.